Country Studied: Greece
Area of Focus: LD Difficulties
Types of learning difficulties the Best Practice is supporting:
- Social or emotional difficulties
- General or specific learning difficulties
Aims and objectives of Best Practice
The study of a foreign language for students with Specific Learning Disorders (SLDs) can often be a tremendous challenge, making this process extremely complex (most of the difficulties arise from spelling and lexis with major consequences for reading, writing and pronunciation). This also entails a challenge for educators and educational institutions having the task of responding to students’ needs by becoming more flexible and equipped to understand, value and adapt to the differences of their students in order to provide them with quality and inclusive education and equal learning opportunities.
Short description of Best Practice
It is designed around the students and their needs, it is active and flexible, capable of responding to a wide range of needs of learners and able to adapt according to the needs of the learners their development
Focuses on the quality of teaching and learning without underestimating or overestimating pupils’ abilities.
Rethinking the role of the one-dimensional teacher-speaker. The teacher must be in frequent contact with students, work with them and assess their abilities, skills, interests and deficiencies, but also to adapt the teaching to the needs of the pupils’ role and teaching methods appropriately so that they can build a more effective relationship between the pupils and the teacher the subject being taught.
Includes individual and group activities that promote the development of each student individually, or encourages and promotes the development of the individual student cooperative and team spirit in a classroom.
3 Key learning Principles that were used in this Best Practice to support learners with LD
- Practice the student’s knowledge of the sequence of terms in the sequence of a sentence and the syntax of the English language.
- To constitute an intervention activity to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge despite the existence of learning deficits.
- To test the learner’s ability to alternate the terms of a sentence, the ability of the learner to change the terms of a sentence to obtain different conceptual results.
- Practice and perhaps enrich the learner’s vocabulary knowledge.
- To stimulate the learner’s inventiveness in producing sentences, sentences and stories.
- Assess the learner’s acquired knowledge.
Strategies used as part of Best Practice
- Adapting instruction to various learning styles.
- Individualized Learning Plans.
- Guidance on creating and implementing individualized learning plans.
- Collaboration with support services and professionals.
- Strategies for modifying or creating teaching materials to suit different abilities.
- Creating a positive and supportive classroom environment.
The first activity is planned by the teacher. At the beginning, students are given pre-selected word cards of different parts of speech and asked to create sentences starting from simpler, later more complex ones, with longer noun phrases, up to longer sentences, periods, using more verbs. The aim in this activity is to maintain the appropriate sequence of words at sentence and phrase level and to follow the rules of the subject matter dictated to them.
Results and impact
- The design and creation of an educational tool – game as a supplementary material for teaching syntactic rules of the English language, in the English language course.
- To investigate the effectiveness of the tool after intervention in a student diagnosed with dyslexia; a case study.
Evidence as to why this was considered Good Practice
- To train students in speech production, in the production of speech, in oral speech.
- To practice the knowledge of typical students, but also pupils with learning deficits (dyslexia), in terms of word order and syntax in English.
- To facilitate the acquisition of knowledge of syntax in English language acquisition for pupils with dyslexia or other learning deficits.
- To practice pupils’ ability to practice the ability of pupils to learn to use the terms of a sentence interchangeably in English.
- To assess the students’ acquired knowledge.
- To relieve possible anxiety of students when they want to produce speech in English.
- Stimulate pupils’ inventiveness in creating sentences, sentences and stories due to the nature of the game, to assess, practice and perhaps enrich pupils’ vocabulary knowledge at class level.
- To strengthen the pupils’ cooperative skills.
Transferability
These techniques can be used accordingly in other institutions if and when they are carried out by an expert.
Resources used as part of Best Practice
- Create predictable lessons, for example warm-up, review, vocab, new grammar, synthesis.
- Engage multiple learning modes including visual, aural and kinesthetic.
- Introduce new material in familiar contexts.
- Scaffold lessons and encourage students to complete complex tasks incrementally
- Make lesson materials available outside of class.
- Use contrasting colors or fonts to emphasize differences between morphology and syntax
- Bridge skills: encourage students to link a well-developed skill with one that is not as strong.
- Consider whether your exams must be ‘timed’. If you believe they must, can you make them shorter in order to reduce stress for everyone?
- Encourage in-country experiences that allow the student to learn in a natural, integrative setting.
Critical issues
It is almost to be expected that pupils with learning difficulties experience high levels of performance anxiety and feelings of inferiority compared to typical children. It is important to target the psychological aspect in addition to the learning aspect because it has a more serious impact on their performance and their willingness to follow the instructions mentioned above.
Any additional learning that we can take from this Best Practice, example:
- Allowing extended time on tests and assignments.
- Allowing the student to dictate written work to a recording device or a scribe.
- Allowing the student to take the test on a computer, using spellcheck, or a scribe.
- Allowing the student to define their in-class participation or to decline to read aloud in front of others. Instead, allow them to prepare input in advance.
- Allowing alternative assignments that de-emphasize skills that are undermined by a student’s difficulty.
Any Additional Information or Resources
By creating a variety of opportunities for students to learn and demonstrate what they have learned, you will make your class more accessible to all students. By discussing with students with LD and providing accommodations, they will achieve a lifelong relationship with a foreign language.
